E. W. Farnsworth, an Ohio writer, is widely published online and in print. He wrote his first novel under the name E. W. Farnsworth about a mining engineer in the Arizona Territory when he was eight years old. Now he has thirty-four literary works available from Amazon in many genres--horror, westerns, science fiction, romance, comedy, action-adventure, mysteries, spy fiction and mixed genres (e.g., cosmic horror). The author's collection, "The Black Marble Griffon" and Other Disturbing Tales,other includes many first-prize-winning horror stories. Farnsworth is currently seeing his The Picklock Lane Stories, Volume III, through the press at East Sussex, UK, and among his projects is a new collection of horror tales, due out in the UK in November 2023.
To view more of E.W. Farnsworth’s work visit his website HERE.
HARVEST
by
E. W. Farnsworth
With golden leaves, knee-high, and branches black and bare, harvest comes, and farmers’ wives rejoice, except Ruth, whose cares now multiply. Trying to please all, she pleases none, least wise herself.
Still, Ruth’s famous pies are stacked in shelters, ready to slice: blueberry, mince, strawberry rhubarb, apple, tart cherry, boysenberry and pumpkin. Her Halloween housewarming is a village mainstay.
Silas, Ruth’s husband, finds the gathering a bore. He hangs out behind their barn with friends smoking and drinking, both anathema in Ruth’s domicile. He tells scary stories with humorous bits, the village wives and male notables satirized mercilessly.
A butt of jokes, the grim reaper always figures in Silas’ dark tales. His scythe sweeps away at least one mortal before the midnight hour. Dressed in a black robe, his bony jaw is barely discernible. Inevitably the joke turns evil as the one who departs in fiction, departs in fact before Christmas.
Silas’ audience stands on one foot, then another for the cold, which stings the lungs and makes their white breath hover in the air. They know the punch line comes. Ruth is the victim in his vicious story. She labors most, but wins in death’s selection.
“Silas, you monster! You’ve condemned your own wife, your children’s mother.”
“My stories tell themselves. I have no authority. The reaper’s scythe might have cut the threads of life of any.”
His hearties were sobered by Silas’ jocularity. They wondered about the health of their loved ones. They dared not look at Ruth when they went back to sample her pies with vanilla ice cream. She was confused about their reticence. Tonight, they complimented her with greater gusto than usual.
Ruth plied her guests with hot liquors, like rum toddy, the butter melting fast and warming the stomach. The men and women talked about their incessant toil, now ended. Their earth’s bounty was hanging from barn rafters or standing on wooden shelves in Mason jars.
Ruth’s sons and daughters helped keep glasses full and dessert plates replenished as the visitors had seconds and thirds. At the door, trick-or-treaters came from the whole county, in every sort of costume. Silas helped dole out the candies and candied apples.
In front of the red farmhouse ghost figures had been placed among tied sheaves of cornstalks. Here and there robotic bats with red eyes raised and lowered automatically. A black cat arched its back. An owl opened its wide wings and closed them, eyes wide open.
Four men formed a barber shop quartet to sing seasonal songs in the enormous living room. Their four wives meanwhile helped the hostess gather the soiled dishes for washing and drying in the kitchen.
Sonorous barks announced the arrival of a pack of hunting hounds and hunters, bent on running game to ground but favoring Ruth’s pies along the way. With them came a man in a black cape asking for Silas. Ruth was uneasy as her husband went outside to talk, so busy she did not hear the scythe.